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The unprecedented, rapid development of new communication and information technologies, such as the Internet and social media, has enabled wider dissemination of racist and xenophobic content that incites racial hatred and violence. In response, States, international and regional organizations, civil society and the private sector have undertaken a variety of legal and policy initiatives. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur examines the context, key trends and the manifestations of racism on the Internet and social media, and provides an overview of the legal and policy frameworks and the measures taken at international, regional and national levels, as well as some of the regulatory norms adopted by Internet and social network providers. He presents examples of measures taken to respond to the use of the Internet and social media to propagate racism, hatred, xenophobia and related intolerance, while highlighting the overall positive contribution of the Internet and social media as an effective tool for combating racism, discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

The Secretary-General has the honour to transmit to the General Assembly the report prepared by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 34/18. In this report, the Special Rapporteur evaluates the human rights law that applies to the regulation of online ‘hate speech’.

Independent review of how Terrorism Act 2000 & of Part 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006 were operated in the UK in 2009

This report provides an overview of two seemingly new formations of online networks of accelerationist and neo-fascist entities that emerged in early 2021 and are self-described Atomwaffen Division spinoffs. It also provides an understanding of how they behave online and speaks to the threats of offline violence they pose.

This article analyses how jihadist ideology groups discursively represent “the West” and “non-believers” in their online propagandamagazines. In doing so, it contributes to the field of Critical Terrorism Studies conceptually, by considering the voices of violent actors, and methodologically, by illustrating how linguistic tools of enquiry can advance current knowledge of jihadist ideology groups. Our work adopts a case study approach, focusing on the online magazines Inspire and Dabiq, which are part of the propaganda machinery of, respectively, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The analysis reveals a number of similarities and differences in the discursive strategies that these two groups use. On the one hand, both Inspire and Dabiq support and further construct an “us versus them” dichotomy that polarises differences between their jihadist ideologies and those of Westerners/non-believers. On the other, Dabiq’s discursive representation of “the West” targets a wider variety of individuals and groups of people and geographical locations than Inspire’s. Additionally, Inspire places a greater focus on the pejorative construction of “the West” than Dabiq, suggesting that Al-Qaeda places more emphasis than ISIS on presenting “the West” as the enemy of jihad.

Taking as reference a cost-benefit analysis of cyberterrorism published in 2004 by Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, this article briefly reviews what happened in the last 15 years in cyberterrorism research, what was correctly forecast, what was wrong and what may happen in the future. Some of the analyses published in during this period have been accurate, indicating that terrorists would use the Web and then social media for supporting operations in financing, recruiting and, especially “propaganda” (information operations), instead of wasting resources in ineffectual cyberattacks against critical infrastructures. The same analyses, however, did not appreciate enough how successful information operations by terrorist groups would have been. Overall, the approach, research methods, findings and forecasting have been quite valid and fruitful and thus they can represent a solid foundation on which scholars of (cyber)terrorism may base their future research.